DR. GARCIA’S PRESIDENTIAL PRIORITIES
Houston cardiologist Tom Garcia, MD, became TMA’s 150th president at TexMed 2015. Dr. Garcia told the TMA House of Delegates his priorities during his one-year term in ofice will include:
• The successful early implementation of the new TMA PracticeEdge physician services organization;
• Oversight of Medicare funding in the wake of the repeal of the Sustainable Growth Rate formula for paying physicians;
• Preserving Texas’ medical liability reform, passed in 2003; and
• Handling whatever unexpected issues arise.
“Everybody knew this thing [SGR] had to be tackled, but nobody wanted to do the hard work of understanding it. The cost of doing nothing was about $1 billion more than it would cost to fix the flawed SGR formula.” The Republican obstetrician-gy- necologist from Lewisville authored the Medicare Access and CHIP Reau- thorization Act (MACRA), tma.tips/ SGRrepeal. President Barack Obama signed MACRA into law on April 16. “Our goal was to get somewhere
north of 270 representatives to vote for repeal. We got 392 members of the house,” Representative Burgess said, noting that 92 senators eventually voted in favor of MACRA. Even after the bill overwhelmingly
passed the House 392-37 on March 26, Representative Burgess saw it through to the end, spending hours on the Sen- ate floor to make sure it avoided a di- version at the last minute. He gave special thanks to Repub-
lican Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, who was instru- mental in defeating a key amendment threat that would have eliminated Medicare’s cap on outpatient therapy services, which could have led to a pay cut for physicians. In drafting the bill, Representative
Burgess says lawmakers deliberately sought medicine’s input, which fig- ured heavily into provisions that keep what he described for delegates as a “private practice option” under fee-for- service, and streamline administrative complexities for quality reporting. He also praised medicine for its help in getting the bill across the finish line. “You all gave me the confidence
and courage to keep moving forward to accomplish repeal of the SGR,” Dr. Burgess said. At the conclusion of Dr. Burgess’
During the House of Delegates’ opening session at TexMed 2015, the TMA Resident and Fellow Section presented the J.T. “Lamar” McNew Award to San Antonio neurosurgeon David F. Jimenez, MD, for his outstanding service to residents.
16 TEXAS MEDICINE July 2015
TexMed 2015 Opening General Session speaker Ira R. Byock, MD, explained that how we die is among the biggest national crises facing the medical profession today. In addressing the sor- ry state of dying in America, Dr. Byock explained that to ensure the best possible care for those we love — and eventually ourselves — we must remake the health care system and move past our cultural aversion to talking about dying.
address, Beaumont anesthesiologist Ray Callas, MD, incoming chair of TMA’s Council on Legislation, pre- sented the congressman with a special award on behalf of TMA, the Texas Medical Liability Trust, and the Texas Alliance for Patient Access.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68